PSA : A simple trick to help reduce lag

ArchMikem · December 2018

I dont know if this is just a placebo effect but i think i see a noticeable improvement after doing this...

I'll be damned. I'll need to test this in a Cyrodiil siege.

TheYKcid · December 2018

Question,

Instead of using your own name, why not type gibberish into the search field instead, producing an empty list? The difference will be minimal no doubt, but it's still 1 less player to track.

Or does this only work specifically when you search for your own name, due to some spaghetti code woo-woo?

Swomp23 · December 2018

ArchMikem wrote: »

I dont know if this is just a placebo effect but i think i see a noticeable improvement after doing this...

I'll be damned. I'll need to test this in a Cyrodiil siege.

Gina confirmed the issue and said they were working on a fix. It’s definitely more then placebo. Nonetheless, I’m glad it helped!

Sylvermynx · December 2018

Well, I tried it today, but didn't see much improvement - normal CPU at 29-30%, dropped to 26-27 with this. Mem usage was around 10%, dropping to 9. FPS did actually increase some - in Vivec while crafting it usually sits at around 25 FPS (WAY too many people around lately!), in heavily wooded areas drops to around 35 as well. With this in place, FPS in Vivec this morning was around 35 most of the time, and in - hmmm now I don't remember where I was! - Auridon maybe? anyway, I was getting 50-60.

I don't know if my small results are due to having a really good machine, or something to do with not updating Win 10 except for security releases.

It doesn't really matter - because we can all hope that ZOS will actually FIX it.

Oh.... the single biggest annoyance is having to do it every time you change girls! Oh well.

OrdoHermetica · December 2018

joseayalac wrote: »

Does this mean that if I disable addons like Master Merchant my performance should improve as well?

Yes, but that's not news. Addons all decrease performance to varying degrees, excepting those that are specifically built to improve performance. Which makes sense, if you think about it: addons are, well, addons to what the engine has to load and run in addition to the game itself. This is especially true of addons like Master Merchant that are constantly sending queries for large amounts of data.

TL;DR: Excepting addons that do tricks like this to improve performance, disabling addons will pretty much always improve your performance.

Joy_Division · December 2018

valeriiya wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks for the info, everyone! Just wanted to let you know we've seen this thread and looked into the claims, and we can confirm there is an issue here. We're actually working on getting a fix tested now, and if everything passes, we'll get it published as soon as we can.

How sad that some random dude was able to help fix something ZO$ struggled with for years. Good job guys.

Not really. Random people on the internet can be brilliant. Also, my feeling is this is less a "fix" than something which may help a little.

In any event, I am glad for any positive development on this front and won't be attribute blame, rather extending credit and gratitude.

D0PAMINE · December 2018

This is welcoming news

Vapirko · December 2018

Great they’re looking into it. Now will they fix it or make it worse?

I think guilds have always been an isssue, like the lag creates by guild purges in the past. They should check as many systems that are always running in the background as they can. Mail?

Bevik · December 2018

This actually confirms that the game updates too many things in the background which you wouldn't even care about until you open the page. Very sad those processes dragging the performance down.

Sylvermynx · December 2018

Bevik wrote: »

This actually confirms that the game updates too many things in the background which you wouldn't even care about until you open the page. Very sad those processes dragging the performance down.

Yeah. I tend to think nothing should be going on background until a specific request is made from the client.

Atreidus · December 2018

I had noticed this to at my older PC: a huge guild seems permanet be loading all the guild members names.
So more traffic. If you look up your name then only your name will be refreshed.

Grimm13 · December 2018

joseayalac wrote: »

Does this mean that if I disable addons like Master Merchant my performance should improve as well?

On my system I can not run MM as I get reduced to a slideshow that does not improve with time. In fact gets worse until i crash. I addressed this with the MM developer and they say it should not do that as it does not on others. well I do have an older machine that probably can not handle the way they have programed it.

So I found Arkidus Trade Tools, ATT. Pretty much the same thing IMHO but works on my system. You may get different results. I have not going back to MM, ATT works fine for my purposes other than not working properly with D's... Lazy Crafter on the pricing. Not ATT's fault as DLC is made just to use MM with no way to change it that I can see.

There's the info, make your choice.

Kel · December 2018

This is incredible.
I waited until prime time to test this out, and the reduction in lag is absolutely noticeable. (PS4 NA)
Yeah, still ran into some lag when I ran into two zergs fighting, but even then it wasn't as bad as before.
My bars have never swapped so smoothly in a long while. No random slowing down frame rates...
Absolutely incredible find op...literally a game changer!

Grimm13 · December 2018

TheYKcid wrote: »

Question,

Instead of using your own name, why not type gibberish into the search field instead, producing an empty list? The difference will be minimal no doubt, but it's still 1 less player to track.

Or does this only work specifically when you search for your own name, due to some spaghetti code woo-woo?

Not certain if it will work as well. I would think your system has it start to look for you and sees the info on your system so stops looking.

Do a non-existent name and it goes through the whole database looking for it and does not find so does it continue to look is the question. I'm not tearing into the code, violation anyways, I'm just making an educated guess based on the results I see and what I know.

Atreidus · December 2018

It will allways look up 1 player.. No matter , if your name is random typed or real. And yes. It can be seen as an traffic exploit to be looking up random trash instead of ingame stuff. Not existing names shall not be perma refreshed.

TheYKcid · December 2018

Tried this out in Cyro earlier. Had a ~25-man, tri-faction skirmish at an outpost, which would normally start to drop FPS a little, but I was maintaining a smooth 60 all the way (which is my max, using vsync on a 60Hz monitor)!

Gonna have to test it more thoroughly and look at my CPU usage numbers, but it seems promising so far!

Ackwalan · December 2018

I tried it tonight, seemed to work. Even when I was zerg surfing AOTP.

Miswar · December 2018

Why is there these guild update location systems etc running on the background?

They are non critical things. To be honest why haven't ZoS checked these? They said they have been "investigating" but have they actually? Sound like NOT...

Maybe actually start focusing checking and fixing stuff like this instead of adding brainless boring pve content.

Actually will check tonight if this makes somewhat of an diffrence to the slideshow called ESO nowdays.

Wake up already at ZoS... check your coding and start fixing the damn product!!!

Grimm13 · December 2018

Miswar wrote: »

Why is there these guild update location systems etc running on the background?

They are non critical things. To be honest why haven't ZoS checked these? They said they have been "investigating" but have they actually? Sound like NOT...

Maybe actually start focusing checking and fixing stuff like this instead of adding brainless boring pve content.

Actually will check tonight if this makes somewhat of an diffrence to the slideshow called ESO nowdays.

Wake up already at ZoS... check your coding and start fixing the damn product!!!

When you deal with theory of systems is one thing on paper, another in testing which is limited in scale and a whole another animal in the real field with heavy loads.

I would wager that the testers are not part of large guilds, probably no guilds at all. So looking at how things are actually looking make it difficult. No way you want them fiddling with your account while you are playing.

So this probably would not show up easily for them to see unless pointed towards by an end user or stumbled upon. How long has people known about this trick and not reported it is another question.

Not making excuses but I can see how it might happen. My background is as a Certified Electrical Engineer and worked as a Linemen in the telcom industry. The same problems plague that industry, so many things can change in the real world what is assumed perfect on paper. The world is not perfect, so we adjust and move on.

jcm2606 · December 2018

@ZOS_GinaBruno Maybe it's about time to have some of your internal testers (hopefully you guys have some) start testing for stupid crap like this. Even if it makes absolutely zero sense, don't worry about it, just test anyways.

twofaced · December 2018

Tested out this walkaround on relatively static environment (Alinor and Cyrodiil morning) and didn't see a difference. Either bug is fixed (I noticed huge lag improvement two fays ago, might not be related tho) or my setup aren't affected by this much. I have stable ~18% CPU and 8.5GB usage.

If those people didn't lie such huge difference in tight net scenario could be explained by the fact that searching/listing thread (I believe you guys use multithreading, right?) have same priority (and replication priority) and cut a portion of other threads.

Anyways it's very bad decision to update hidden widgets. Just add visible check in Tick function god dammit.

jcm2606 · December 2018

This is probably one of those bottlenecks that would only affect weaker systems, as it seems most people who are seeing an improvement do have older or weaker systems.

NinchiTV · December 2018

jcm2606 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno Maybe it's about time to have some of your internal testers (hopefully you guys have some) start testing for stupid crap like this. Even if it makes absolutely zero sense, don't worry about it, just test anyways.

I thought thats why they had us , so we should be getting paid for this. Starting with OP.

pod88kk · December 2018

It actually works!!!!!!!
I have hamster internet & was able to get through 3 hours of PVP without crashing!!! Usually I DC every half an hour or so

IlCanis_LupuslI · December 2018

Swomp23 wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Thanks for sharing @Swomp23 , following this for some more verification from the PC community, but if this really helps that'll be great news

My pleasure! Did you try it yourself on Xbox? Did it help?

@Sandman929 it definetly helped reduce lag, won't fix all the crashes but it definetly helped a lot (Xbox one s) I usually crash 1/h and almost always when I get into bigger fights. I also noticed keeps and bridges are a prime source of crashes as long as I avoided them I was fine (at primetime otherwise even there no problems). Nly I crashed 1 time in a evening and we had a few lag recipes for desaster. Only crashed in a zerg vs zerg at faregyl.

IlCanis_LupuslI · December 2018

This + external storage of the game + using a polymorph (only helped a bit) really reduced crashing by, 80% not to mention using a other DNS

IlCanis_LupuslI · December 2018

jcm2606 wrote: »

This is probably one of those bottlenecks that would only affect weaker systems, as it seems most people who are seeing an improvement do have older or weaker systems.

Or console players like me ^^

IlCanis_LupuslI · December 2018

jabrone77 wrote: »

This is incredible.
I waited until prime time to test this out, and the reduction in lag is absolutely noticeable. (PS4 NA)
Yeah, still ran into some lag when I ran into two zergs fighting, but even then it wasn't as bad as before.
My bars have never swapped so smoothly in a long while. No random slowing down frame rates...
Absolutely incredible find op...literally a game changer!

Agreed, it actually saved my ass a few times when I managed to start block&barswitch cancelling defensive abilities (at primetime on console) no bars witch issues incredible definetly a game changer and life saver

Grimm13 · December 2018

jcm2606 wrote: »

This is probably one of those bottlenecks that would only affect weaker systems, as it seems most people who are seeing an improvement do have older or weaker systems.

I would on that with PC's but also keep in mind that every system contributes to the servers load. So the improvement will be on both sides of the connection as the load is reduced.

Possible that the testers also have more powerful machines as well, so they did not see much. Still it's a problem that compounds unnecessarily. Unfortunately coders have become sloppy with more forgiving systems available.

Feanor · December 2018

Probably it doesn’t help either that their testing systems are wired to the server with 10 ms ping, no addons, and a environment no player ever has. At least I assume it is that way.